Staying Busy and Trying to Stay Cool

We're staying pretty busy this summer. Rachel has had several playdates in addition to our regular playgroup, and she's getting to do more fun stuff outside this year than last. We both love that she's getting more to an age that she can do more interesting activities (as you'll see in the photos). Her tantrums are getting fewer and farther between episodes (thank you Lord!!); we've gotten better with keeping a schedule and routine with her and I think that's helping. I still can't figure out how to stop her from screaming when she gets upset; just ignoring it for now and hoping she'll outgrow it. She's still making great strides with her speech therapy. We'll be making some decisions in the coming weeks about how to best keep her improving. Oh yeah, and we're in full force potty training mode. We have good days and bad days; she won't tell us beforehand, but I'm hoping she'll at least get into the habit of going and sooner or later she'll tell me she has to go potty! :)

William is growing by leaps and bounds! He's up to about 17 pounds now and he'll be six months old on the 9th of this month! Aaahh! It feels like we just brought him home from the hospital! He's started eating solid foods; today he had his first bananas with his rice cereal and I could tell he really liked it better than just plain cereal. He also had his first dip in a pool this week (sorry...no pictures!) and Loved it. How is it that it's already August! Time flies way too fast, and I'm reminded of that too much lately. So I try to savor every moment with my sweet kiddos and think about how much more fun we'll have in the years to come :)

Scenes from the month of July in no particular order:

William in his big boy pajamas

How cute is this??? :)

Flies have been so bad at our place this year...here's Rachel the Fly Hunter looking to clean up the place!

Rachel playing in her new yard sprinkler...

...and William watching her.

I made Rachel some homemade play dough (glad i didn't buy any...it took about one day for these 3 lovely mounds to turn into one big brown lump; I now only color batches with one color) and she plays with it almost everyday by asking for her "play doe doe". It's too cute; I'll have to get video of her saying it.

William is now big enough to play with Rachel's jumperoo which makes playtime in the playroom a little easier.
I can't believe I got such a good shot of him! He doesn't ham it up quite as much as his sister does for the camera.

Rachel is always insisting on sitting with her brother (she waves her hands toward herself and says "Baby me! Baby me!"). Here they are watching cartoons together.
Rachel has always liked fruit, but she apparently Really likes cantalope (that or i just got an especially sweet one). She kept stealing wedges of this one off the counter while I was still cutting it up!

This was taken about 8:30pm one night when Rachel decided she just Had to have some pancakes (we don't read "Curious George Makes Pancakes" at night anymore!). She'd had a late nap so we obliged her the treat.
Here's Daddy having some fun with the camera.

"Hey Ladies...how You doin'? :)

This is Rachel's fingerpainting get up; this is the tshirt I wear when I color my hair. I think I've had this shirt since the 9th grade! When she's been a good girl, we'll let Rachel eat her breakfast and watch her favorite cartoons in the living room. She looks so Big in these pictures for whatever reason. Maybe it's because you can tell how tall she is.
She rarely lets me put her hair up (or at least keep it up); i got this picture during the five minutes before she started pulling the pigtails down. She did think they were "cool" though(our new favorite word) as she watched me put her hair up in the mirror and proclaimed "two mom!" "two" is our new favorite number.
I love post-bath pictures! Here's my little man right out of the tub :)

Silly Dances with Rachel

Just as a disclaimer, Rachel dressed herself for this video :) I think she kinda looks like a surfer who's had a long day at the beach! (that sounds nice doesn't it?) She'd had a big day playing outside with my friend Crystal and her daughter Addie; this was shot pre-bathtime so she's pretty disheveled. She does some talking too which is kinda fun (btw, she now says Phineas much better and it sounds so cute when she does!). She's made so much progress in just the last few weeks! It's still a work in progress, but a month ago she'd have never put three words together!

Swinging and Sliding

William's First Road Trip

**I started this post a couple of weeks ago but had such trouble editing in the html format with so many pictures that I gave up for a while! But I've had a little pocket of time today while the kids are napping, so here they are finally, July 8th! **

A few weeks ago we took a trip to see family up in Arkansas. We had such a great time in both Hot Springs and Little Rock....once we finally got there. It took us SIX hours to get to Hot Springs, a stop that usually takes only about 4 hours. It took almost 4 hours just to get to Texarkana, in part because Rachel upchucked her chicken nuggets (though luckily with some quick thinking by this Mom most of it was caught in said nugget box). Needless to say we were VERY happy to finally make it to Nana and Papa's. And to top it off, we even made it in time to get some McClard's tamales this time! (we've wanted these the last 3 or 4 times we've visited but always seemed to be there on a day McClard's was closed).

As you'll see in the pictures, the kids had a ball!

Our first stop was to Hot Springs to see Joshua's grandparents

Everyone loved loving on William...

Sleepy boy on Papa's shoulder

Rachel loves her Papa :)

Two peas in a pod :)

Playing with her cousin John who happened to be visiting the same time we were; we had a good time getting to catch up with him as well.

Next up was Little Rock to see my folks; here's William with my mom and dad

Ready to dig into Memorial Day barbecue on my mom's awesome front porch that my dad renovated
William meeting my grandparents for the first time
Rachel found her Aunt Lydia's guitar and had fun playing around with it. She's awfully musical and I'm sure we'll have her taking lessons of some sort in a few years. This is Rachel's Easter dress for next year that my mom got her on major sale this spring. We tried it on to see if it'll fit, and sure enough it does. The hard part was getting Miss Rachel out of it afterwards. I'm including so many pictures of this seemingly uneventful act because she was too funny prancing around and modeling for us! I wish i'd gotten a video of it...you could better see her catwalk prowess. Made me a little sad though because with her hair up like it is it made me think of her going off to prom one day and I don't want my baby getting that old just yet! :)

My mom and dad got the kids a swingset to play on while they're visiting. They were going to give it to us, but we realized that our backyard is too small to accomodate the one they bought. But Rachel had a blast everyday having her own "weeee" to play on (her word for playing at the park or playground).

My dad enlarged and fenced in this vegetable garden area for my mom this spring. I couldn't get over how pretty it all turned out!

Rachel doing her part to help with the watering

Rachel had such fun chasing this lizard around the backyard. He's quite a handsome lizard!

We wanted to get some pictures of Rachel in my mom's zinnia patch, but it was a little too late in the day and she didn't feel like cooperating much.

This one cracks me up! She'd just broken the head off one of the zinnias while trying to sniff it and she wasn't happy with the result!

Rachel had her first tea party on our trip. She was such a good hostess! My mom poured tea for her and then she talked with such glee about her tea to everyone! ("Mmmmm! Teeeeea!") My dad taught her to clink tea cups like one does when making a toast, and now every time she drinks out of a mug she insists on clinking glasses with someone (thanks Daddy!). Grandmama made her very happy too by sending the teaset home with her.

Playing and Growing

William had his 4 month checkup last week. Like his sister, he's a tall baby (if something that can't stand can be tall...) at 27" (95th %). However, he weighed in at 16lbs. and 12oz., a weight Rachel didn't achieve until she was about 9 months old! I call him my "chunky monkey" :) He's a very happy and healthy baby boy! We've noticed he babbles a lot more than his sister did too, and he can squeal in very high pitches.


Rachel is doing really great too (for a two year old anyway!). She's very strong willed, never doing what we say until we've said it at least five times. I just keep reminding myself that "this too shall pass"....just not before I've added a lot more gray hairs! She's a little behind on her speech so we have a speech therapist that comes 3 times a month to try to get her up to speed. She talks, just not as much or as articulately as she should. She relies a lot on pointing and intonation much more than actual words. All her therapy comes through play, and it's been good for Joshua and me too because we're learning how to really play with her so that she learns more.

Here's a few pics of what the kids have been doing lately. I should have a lot more of our trip to Arkansas coming soon.

Now that William plays with his baby gym, Rachel is always trying to play with him. I can't wait until they're a little older and can really play together.

Is there really anything sweeter than a sleeping baby?

William's getting really good at holding himself up when he's on his tummy (he can roll over onto his tummy too now). Before I know it he's going to be crawling!
Miss Rachel found out the hard way what happens when you stick your torso out the doggy door during a rain shower!

I'm Gonna Laugh...No Wait, I'm Gonna Fuss!

You be the judge